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Today was a weird day. Spent about an hour at the courthouse to file the papers and then appear before a judge so my husband and I could change our names to a brand new last name. But in the meantime I’ve been reading these articles:

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Since one-word reviews are frowned upon at the Cannonball Read, I’ll elaborate. Like Sophia, who read this book prior (and whose review I should have read first), I had some issues with the depth of this book. I got some useful tips from it, and it was a pretty quick read (I read it in about three days), but I didn’t enjoy it. It was like watching a rerun of one of the filler episodes of Friends – it was fine, and I laughed a bit, but I could have been doing something better with my time. (And also like the characters in friends, the people in this book are affluent, white, and seem fake.)

That’s probably part of my problem. I don’t particularly like what this author presents of herself. While that doesn’t really matter with other books, it’s kind of a big deal with this style of book. There was an ‘aww shucks’ quality that is not my particular cup of tea. Additionally, this woman started from pretty high up on the happiness scale. Not that any happiness discussion should be limited to those who have been deeply unhappy, and I recognize that there is value in helping people improve their lives regardless of where they started from, but COME ON. This woman is rich. This woman has two healthy, adorable daughters that she clearly loves. Both the kids grandparents were alive as of the writing of the book, and her in-laws (whom she also adores) live around the corner. She makes a living following her passion. And all of that was BEFORE she started the Happiness Project.

But as I said, that doesn’t necessarily mean what she’s going to say doesn’t have value; it just means a whole hell of a lot of people aren’t going to be able to find much in common with her and so may find it a little hard to think that singing in the morning is really going to change things for them. And Ms. Rubin is clear that this is *her* happiness project, and that everyone’s will be different. But I’d be more inclined to start on my own if the one I’d just read hadn’t been so … weirdly lacking in self-awareness. For example, she talks about wanting to eat better but seems to applaud herself because she’s NOT going on a diet. She’s just … cutting out food groups entirely to lose weight. O-kay. And while she has the healthy view that you can’t change others, you can only change yourself, some of the discussions around trying to give up needing to be praised kind of make her husband look like he’s taking total advantage of her. And since I know about 300 pages worth of her marriage (i.e. next to nothing), I’ve no right to actually judge that relationship. But it was impossible to remove my thoughts on the author from what the author was saying.

Here’s my take-away: if you respond well to checklists, you’ve got an interest in somewhat saccharin writing, and you are looking for a dozen or so useful nuggets, sure. Add this to your list. Otherwise … no need. Shoot, you can even email me and I’ll send you the items I thought were the most useful if you’d really rather not bother.

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It’s getting warm and Macklemore is supposedly shooting a music video down the street in a couple of hours. If you’re not outside enjoying the sun (or are but reading this on your phone), here are some ways to amuse/anger/inform yourself.

– Apparently a solid eight hours sleep is a (relatively) new phenomenon. I guess our kittens are just trying to bring us back to tradition when they start wrestling on our bed at 2 A.M. The myth of the eight-hour sleep

– In confusing-fat-with-unhealthy news, Penn State is doing some super creepy stuff with their employee health benefits. I mean, it is Penn State, but still. Ick. Side note – this is one blog where the comments can be super fun to read. In totally not surprising news

– Well this is interesting. I may write about it more this week. Should a city be able to have a say in the wages of companies within its borders? Should it make it more difficult for those who pay low wages to set up shop because the employees will need to be supplemented by the government when the pay isn’t enough? Mayor’s race ignited as McGinn called out on Whole Foods attack

And finally, this. Austin and I both took “The Life You Can Save” pledge last year. Once our charity savings account hits $1000 (used to be $450, but we’re trying to increase the impact of our money), we donate it to a charity. It isn’t always the type that Mr. Singer suggests, but we like consciously setting aside that money each paycheck and supporting causes that matter to us.

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There are a lot of good and interesting articles out there today, so let’s jump in.

– First, here’s that article on the royal baby I was hoping someone was writing. You know it’s going to be good if a) Laurie Penny is the author and b) this is the first sentence: “The consensus that it is feckless and irresponsible for couples who rely on state benefits to reproduce clearly does not extend to the monarchy.” Babies We Don’t Care About Today

– Next, we move from teenage moms to teenagers who would actually like to not become moms: a 14-year-old girl calls out people who call her a whore. I’m The 14-Year-Old …

– Sticking with the baby theme, next up is a surprising study. I love science. And I really love it when a study that appears to have been well-formulated and carried out disproves ‘common sense.’ In this case, that it’s the crack, not the poverty, that’s harmed children. ‘Crack baby’ study ends with unexpected but clear result

– Are you still bitterly disappointed in the lack of justice for Trayvon Martin? Are you white and not sure how you can help without either appropriating the issue or causing more harm than good? Here’s a toolkit: Justice for Trayvon Action Kit

– Finally, something entertaining. This edit of Ice Ice Baby by @dondrapersayswhat is pretty fantastic (for some reason you may need to hit refresh to get this to load):

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A lovely summer Monday in Seattle. It’s my day off, so I’ve been running errands, doing laundry, reading (A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Two), and catching up on the day’s news. In an effort to write more, I’ve decided to do a compilation post every day, with at least weekly in-depth posts on a topic of interest, plus the Cannonball Read V reviews as I finish up books.

– A feminist I follow on twitter – Amanda Marcotte – was the subject of a whole lot of negative tweets by Dr. Jane Chi, a fellow feminist. I’ve not read any of Ms. Marcotte’s longer form articles or books, so I was unaware of the issue. This article clarified that for me. As a very privileged feminist myself, I recognize that voices from women whose experiences more closely match mine than other people’s get way more coverage than makes sense (even when those voices are good, they shouldn’t drown out the feminists who are persons of color). It’s a shame that Ms. Marcotte perhaps willfully chooses to ignore the broader issues of intersectionality: An Open Letter to Amanda Marcotte

I’m also on the lookout for some good articles on the media coverage of that baby that was born in London today, focusing more on the hoopla and the bizarre idea of royalty still existing. If you know of any please send them my way.

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I’ve watched all three seasons of A Game of Thrones and enjoyed them immensely. My husband has read all five of the books; I had not heard of them until the TV show started. I usually don’t go in for fantasy books (nothing about Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit appeals to me), although I did enjoy reading and watching the Harry Potter series. I think I enjoy magic, and castles, and ridiculous concepts of honor; I just didn’t realize that there were books out there that had the things I like without the things I don’t.

I bought the bullet and bought the first book at the airport before leaving on my honeymoon. We were taking five flights total, and while I had a kindle full of fun books to read, I knew that for about 20 minutes at the beginning and end of each flight I’d not be able to access it. So I figured it made sense to have a physical book that I could easily step away from (because I knew what was going to happen next) and that was broken down into such small chunks that I could stop and start without getting lost. This fit the bill perfectly.

I loved this book. I loved the narrative device, I loved the character development, I loved the writing. It’s clearly difficult to form my own visions of people and places now that I’ve seen actors and sets assigned to them, but that didn’t take away from the book for me. In fact, I think it helped me keep everything straight in my mind, at least as much as I could. We learn about so many different people in this first book that I think I might have been confused if I didn’t have the TV show in the back of my mind to jog my memory.

As seems to be the case with most people I’ve discussed this with, my favorite chapters are the ones dealing with Arya, Daenerys, and Tyrion. I like Arya’s spunk, Daenerys’ steadfastness, and Tyrion’s self-awareness and humor. I’m not so much interested in Bran, or Jon, or really any of the other Starks, and Sansa. Oh Sansa. The women in this book are interesting and not one-dimensional (except perhaps Sansa, at least initially); the men are complicated and not all just excited to pick up a sword. And while there were many brutal scenes involving poor treatment of women, I don’t get a misogynistic feeling from the writing. Martin has chosen to set the book in a fictional world but it still has a lot of the same issues (expressed in different ways) as we have in this one. I look forward to reading book two, and anticipate that it’s going to be very hard to fit any other books in between now and when I finish book five.